Welcome to The Mundane Adventures of a Fangirl

I consider myself a Fangirl. What does that mean, you ask? A "fanboy" in the most common understanding is a hardcore fan of 'genre' based entertainment in particular. In my case - science-fiction and comic book based movies and television. Because I'm a chick - it's fangirl, not fanboy. There you have it! I am a big movie fan, however, not necessarily a 'film' fan. And now - I have the forum to present my opinions to the public! These will mainly be movie reviews -that will always be my opinion - repeat OPINION. Just what I think, and in no way do I present my opinion as fact. I hope you enjoy and maybe it will help you decide what to see at the movie theater this weekend!

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Movie Review: The November Man (R – 108 minutes)

Here we are in that time of year after all the summer
blockbusters and prior to the late-year rush of Award-Season type movies that
studios push out just in December to keep fresh in the voters’ minds. October will be filled with new horror movies,
as it should be. Guardians of the Galaxy
is still playing (go see it again!) but aside from that, there’s not much to
look forward to for a while (Avengers 2 will be out in May!!). We will get a few average action flicks and
rom-coms to fill the space. Case in
point, The November Man (it’s the former, not the latter, although thinking of
it as a rom-com is interesting. Someone
re-edit the trailer with Rom-Com music and voice-over!).

It is directed by Austrailian director Roger Donaldson who
also did No Way Out, Cadillac Man, White Sands, The Getaway, Species, Dante’s
Peak, The Recruit, and The Bank Job. All
of those are better than this.
Especially White Sands, Species, and The Bank Job.

This particular movie is actually based on Bill Granger’s
novel “There are No Spies”, which was published in 1987, and was the 7th
Devereaux novel. The first novel in the
series was actually called “The November Man”, and was published in 1979. We are first introduced to Devereaux as he is
on a CIA mission 8 years ago with his trainee.
They are looking to protect a diplomat of some sort who has to avoid an
impending assassination attempt. Well,
Devereaux’s young recruit says he’s ready, acts like he’s ready, but jumps the
gun and fires his sniper rifle, despite being warned by Devereaux to wait. He hits his target, but also manages to kill
a small child who was in the line of fire.
This apparently was enough to force Devereaux into retirement.

We then catch up with Devereaux 8 years later in that
retirement as he relaxes in the bistro he owns.
He’s visited by his old handler, Hanley, who lets him know that a woman
he was close to needs to defect from the Russian politician she’s been
undercover with. See, this Russian
politician is about to become the new Russian president, and he’s cleaning up
his history by assassinating everyone who knew what he did in the past – which varies
from the sex trafficking of young women he kidnapped during the war in Serbia
to starting that same war with the assistance of the CIA. This woman, with whom Devereaux had a
relationship (I mention that again because the movie hits you over the head
with it repeatedly), has information that needs to be known, but, according to
Hanley, she will only speak to Devereaux – again, because of their relationship. He heads to Moscow, just as she flees her
employer. He rescues her, but she is
surprised to see him and clearly was not expecting him. She gives him a phone filled with secrets
just as the former trainee, now fully fledged agent, assassinates her on the
orders of another CIA operative.

Now Devereaux is left with a phone of secrets, a bitter
ex-trainee sniper, a female Russian assassin, a social worker, and a name of a woman who had been the Russian
politician’s “pet” and witnessed him conspiring with the CIA to start the
war. He has to work fast to put all the
pieces together, protect the social worker, and find the girl before the sniper
and/or assassin kill him.

That sounds pretty exciting and twisty, right? It’s not poorly put together, Donaldson is a
great director who excels at these types of movies (if you’ve forgotten No Way
Out – watch that again). So why was my reception
of it so lukewarm? It may be the cast;

Pierce Brosnan plays Devereaux very well, and while I never,
ever buy him as American, no matter how good the accent is (it’s not), he does
play him as old and weary, yet determined and able. He goes through an entire range of emotions
during the case, but in a very subtle manner, which I found very
believable. He spends a lot of time
drinking – seriously, every time he stops running, he’s drinking – so I am
curious if that is a bit from the book?
It felt a little out of place in the movie.

Austrailian actor Luke Bracey plays Mason, the ex-trainee
who is now all angry and bitter once he finds out that Devereaux recommended he
be let go because he couldn’t follow orders.
He really takes that personally.
If you are not familiar with Bracey yet – go ahead and get familiar –
apparently they are remaking Point Break (sacrilege!) and he is your new Johnny
Utah.

Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) plays the social
worker, Alice, and it’s pretty clear from the beginning that she is hiding something. She gets swept up in the chase for this
refugee girl that she helped escape Russia, then reveals something that I think
everyone saw coming, but still does a good job – I wanted a bit more from her
final scene –and were they trying to sell that she and Brosnan had a romantic
connection? Because that I would not
buy.

Bill Smitrovich – who you’ve seen in everything – plays Hanley. He’s desperate when he shows up at the Bistro
begging Devereaux to get back in the game and help him extract the undercover
Russian agent Natalia. He uses the
leverage of their relationship (alright already! We get it!), so he knows that Devereaux will
not be able to say no. He’s super
trustworthy and sympathetic, until he flips, and man – does he flip. He really steals the end of the movie.

Amila Terzimehic plays the Russian assassin, who was really
interesting – and just as I am about to say I could have used more of her in
the movie, it occurs to me that I am glad there wasn’t more of her – because
that is what kept her interesting. You
have never seen her in movies before, but she was a Bosnia and Herzegovinia
Rythmic Gymnastics champion – which explains the scene of her stretching. She’s vicious and efficient, and was really
cool in this movie.

Lazar Ristovski plays the Russian politician Arkady
Federov. I can’t tell if he was really
good at playing the slimy, villainous Federov, or if he just is that way. He’s basically the same character as all
Russian politician characters in movies like this. You cannot wait for him to get his
comeuppance, and thank goodness he does.

Will Patton has what is almost a cameo as Perry Weinstein,
the CIA head who orders several hits, and seems to be the bad guy. He’s really around to push Mason to get angry
with Devereaux, because Devereaux recommended he be dropped, and because
Devereaux hid his relationship with Natalia from him. And because Devereaux told Mason he couldn’t
have relationships, but then had one of his own – how dare he! Also – not sure about the hair, clearly a wig
to cover his Falling Skies hair, and not really a good one.

It’s not bad, really – It’s just unoriginal. It seems to be the same political
spy/espionage movie you’ve seen a dozen times.
It could have been great, the cast is certainly capable, but with a few
changes here and there to bring in some real chemistry – or someone really
interesting to watch, the movie may have been even better. As it is, it’s just fine for this time of
year. If it had come out it May – it would
be worse!

6 out of 10 – Gained points for Patton being evil behind a
desk. Lost points for the R rating,
which was probably not necessary – they could have trimmed out some of the
language and blood. Gained points for
Terzimehic – she was pretty awesome.
Lost points for the weird slow motion in weird parts. It just felt like it didn’t fit. Lost points for Devereaux’s constant drinking…I
mean really, who does he think he is - James Bond?

Bonus Video 1: The
Thomas Crown Affair Remake. I loved
Pierce as James Bond – but this is my favorite Pierce Brosnan movie.

Bonus Video 2:
Species – a really cool sci-fi flick by the same director, with a great
cast!

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I use my blog as an outlet for my rantings about movies and pop culture in general. This will spare my friends and family from my near-constant lecturing on the state of movies today, but will unleash that lecturing into the bloggosphere - sorry!
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